It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel.

Some critics have since noted Leavitt's career has never recovered from the plagiarism charge and that a once-promising author is now considered a marginalized gay writer with limited scope. The publiDavid Leavittrs also agreed never to publish the manuscript that had become the subject of the charge of plagiarism. In addition Spender claimed that Leavitt had fictionalized his life especially by adding graphic fantasies attributed to the character modeled after Spender (in particular "allegedly using his relationship with 'Jimmy Younger'").

David Leavitt (born June 23 1961) is an American novelist.